Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 in the flesh

Officially announced just 3 days ago, Samsung showed us their new Galaxy Note 8.0 in a regional event here in Jakarta, Indonesia. Check out our hands-on impressions after the break.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 fills the gap left by the Galaxy Note 2 at 5.5 inches and the Galaxy Note 10.1 at 10 inches. The obvious gap is filled by the Note 8.0 and is also probably a response to the popular iPad Mini.

The shape and feel of the tablet is actually closer to the Note 2 than the Note 10.1 with all that curves and glossy finish. The tapered edges gives it a perception that it’s very thin but we couldn’t shake the fact that it’s just 7.95mm only (feels a bit thicker to me).

The TouchWiz UI is very familiar and instead of just 4 icons per row, the Note .80 was able to squeeze in 6 icons so they look more proportionate to the size of the tablet.

Here’s a quick YouTube video demo we took earlier.

The Note 8.0 has pretty good hardware specifications although we felt they cut some corners here like the HD display. We suspect that Samsung is going to pit this against the iPad Mini so the slightly controlled maneuver on the specs will still beat the latter on paper and manage to inch pretty close to same the retail price.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 specs:
8-inch TFT WXGA display @ 800×1280 pixel, 189ppi
Samsung Exynos 4 1.6GHz quad-core processor
2GB RAM
16GB, 32GB internal memory
micro SD up to 64GB
5 megapixel camera (no flash)
1080p @ 30fps video recording
1.3 megapixel front camera
WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth 4.0
Android 4.1 Jellybean
Li-Ion 4,600mAh battery
210.8 X 135.9 x 7.9mm (dimensions)
338g (weight)

Samsung did not indicate when they will release the Galaxy Note 8.0 in the Philippines nor its retail price but our earlier reports point it to around Php16k to Php17k.

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